practice at home until Athletic Park was ready. With their ballpark still under feet of water, all spring training exhibition games with out-of-town teams had to be cancelled, including a series each against the National League's Cincinnati Reds, the Western League's Detroit Tigers, and the minor league Atlanta Crackers and Chattanooga Blues. By mid-April, when the flood waters finally receded, Work ordered players to arrive at Nashville no later than April 19. The postponed start to their spring practice put them some two weeks behind the rest of the league, whose teams were already at work on the diamond. By April 24, half of the roster had yet to report even though they had been sent train tickets and telegraphed in response their intentions to arrive by earlier dates. The team was so shorthanded that three local amateur players had to be recruited to make up a team for a practice game on April 26. In what was to be their only tuneup game before the season commenced, the Centennials defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores, 7–4, on April 26. The season in Nashville Despite the lack of virtually any practice, the Centennial lads were scheduled to open the 1897 season on April 28 against the Evansville Brewers at Athletic Park. Nashville's Opening Day roster consisted of pitchers Theodore Conover, Jack McCoy, Charlie Petty, and Willis; catcher Frank Belt; first baseman Pat Dillard; second basemen Charley Watkins and Patrick Lynch; third baseman Fred Blakely; shortstop Percy Griffin; left/right fielders Fred Brott and George Cleve; and center fielder Phil Veatch. Billy Work would manage from the dugout or play the field as needed. Watkins, a local player, was added only for the first game until Lynch could join the team. The Opening Day game was a pitchers' duel between Nashville's Willis and Evansville's King Bailey witnessed by about 500 people in attendance. The visitors scored their first run on an error in the first inning and followed up with another run in the second. In the fifth, Willis drove in Watkins with an RBI double and later scored on Blakey's base hit, tying the game. Evansville scored again in the seventh, defeating the home team, 5–4. Work said afterwards that he expected much better from his team as they got in more playing time, this having been the first time many of them had played together. Nashville lost the next afternoon's game, 2–1,